Vampires have been a staple of the silver screen since the earliest days of movies. They've been part of literature since the 16th century, and of folklore and myth since the dawn of time. More than 170 films have featured Dracula. No other fictional character has been the subject of more! Countless other movies have featured other vampires. Many great classical authors have written tales with vampire characters. Victor Hugo. Lord Byron. Edgar Allan Poe. Emily Brontë. Alexandre Dumas pere. Théophile Gautier. And almost everyone is familiar with modern authors who have also told vampire stories. Anne Rice, Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer, Richelle Mead, Barbara Hambly and Nora Roberts, among others.

Choose what kind of vampire you want to be: historic or modern, creepy or debonair, a specific character or a generic one. Do you want to be a hideous Nosferatu, à la Max Schreck in the 1922 German classic? Pick one of our scary masks and a hooded robe, or go for gory makeup. Or would you rather be a dapper Dracula à la Bela Lugosi? Choose one of our Victorian-style costumes. Perhaps a woman would like to become a Theda-Bara-esquefemme fatale? Choose a sleeveless Edwardian-style gown with a narrow skirt, and use lots of heavy black eyeliner. Or maybe you'd like to be just a vampire's telepathic girlfriend, like Anna Paquin? We have licensed True Blood costumes--you, too, can be a waitress at Merlotte's!

Maybe you want to be a different sort of vampire altogether. There were many actual historical humans accused or suspected of being vampires. They would have worn the same clothes as everyone else in their time and place. Or you could be a vampire-like creature from ancient mythology before the word "vampire" existed. You could be a Mesopotamian uruku. A Sumerian edimmu. A Mayan camazotz. Or even an Aztec cihuateteo. Of course, nobody quite knows what a cihuateteo or an edimmu looked like, but a camazotz was a bat. Use your imagination, and nobody will be able to say you're wrong!

So, choose the look you want, and make it happen! Once you've got the look, learn to play the part. Other than being (usually) a bit taller, thinner and paler, most vampires don't look much different from humans. It's their speech, behavior and mannerisms that set them apart. Since many vampires have lived for hundreds of years, they bring a flavor of earlier eras to their persona. They're a bit more traditional and formal. They stand up straighter, and may speak with an accent that reveals their origins. Dracula (and Bela Lugosi, perhaps the best-known actor to play the character) was from Transylvania, a region of what is now Romania. So he had an eastern European accent. He pronounced his "w" as "v" and rolled his "r"s. For example, "I vant to drrrrinkyourrr blood!" Lord Ruthven (the first English-language literary vampire)would have spoken with an upper-class British accent. Anne Rice's and Charlaine Harris's vampire characters have a French accent, either from France itself or from Cajun Louisiana. Theda Bara's heartless femme fatale, Rien, was also French. Even speaking unaccented English, a vampire might use fewer contractions than modern humans. For example, one might say"I am" instead of "I'm," or "is not" instead of "isn't."

Transform yourself into a charming creature of legendary, irresistible beauty or handsomeness! Entice or compel your victims to do your bidding. If you're going to portray a specific fictional or historic character, research the time and place where that character lived.

If you're creating your own character concept, everything is up to you. Is your persona a "newborn" vampire, or were you "made" centuries or millennia ago? What caused the transformation? A new vampire would have red eyes--get a pair of our red contact lenses to give that appearance. One might perhaps have a more urgent need for blood, as well, and less impulse-control. If your character is an ancient vampire, s/he would have learned how to blend in with humans and control the urge to feed. But an older vampire might show more old-fashioned manners and behavior, from the time and place of his/her making. You get to choose!